


Peace and Trust and Master Assassins

by eak_a_mouse



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-10
Updated: 2012-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 13:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eak_a_mouse/pseuds/eak_a_mouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a comfort to another hand recording her pulse, saying You’re alive in the way that her heart has always said it. </p>
<p>And her hand wanders above his ribcage to find his heart’s echoed And so am I.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peace and Trust and Master Assassins

This is where they make their peace.

They both know the calm when the world slows down to strikes and blocks and counter strikes, a split second game of acrobatic chess they always win. (Barton likes his distance, to be the eyes in the sky. The first time he mentioned it, she raised an eyebrow and took him to the floor. Their sparring sessions have since become one of the legends of SHIELD.) Looking one, two, five, twenty moves into the future. Mind and body flowing in perfect harmony. Action and reaction until they’re the only ones left standing. And this is not it. 

The winter’s chill and the snow’s silence have been bred into her soul. If the tourists look at the snowfall in the morning and think how wondrous and magical and peaceful, (powdered sugar and a brand new slate), well, they never painted the snow red. Winter cold in your bones and a slow slog to survival, (she was never going to go down doing anything but fighting). She hears the whispers of Ice Queen, Frost Bitch, at her back and thinks maybe they can see the ice in her eyes, the cold fire in her heart. But that’s fine. If she meant to make friends, she wouldn’t be here.

Barton’s fingers have the imprint of a bowstring and his eyes have the patience of a sniper, no, not a sniper, a crackshot, the best shot, the one you send to spend three days on the best vantage point you’ve got, past any reasonable attempt, past any records set even with the fairest of conditions. ( Foolish, waste of time are the whispers). So when there is the barest flash, of that target’s face, he is dead, arrow through his eye. And for all that he sat there, unmoving for three days, that is not peace. Even if, they don’t question what he can do again as he ghosts through SHIELD’s hallways. Whispers changed to awkward stares. He never thought he could feel like a circus freak, not when he'd left the dust of his past far behind. But there's something about the way they're rewarding him for killing. Coulson simply smiled. (After all, he was Coulson’s folly first.)

No, this is when they breathe, synchronised when she lays fully on top of him, a cycle of inhale and exhale and mingled breaths. And their hands are intertwined because they are safe. 

As safe as anyone. 

Safe as houses.   
(Who says they have no home?)

This is how they show their trust. 

And when she moves above him ( fingers sliding past one another, catching all his callouses), he stays open, unmoving, because she knows him, and pleasure is easy to take, but hard to be given and he can wait for this. 

His eyes are hooded because this sway isn’t graceful, not the seductress act she uses on the job (Because her body is a weapon, just as much as his.) This grace is unconscious. As is the beauty in the curve of her wrist as she tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles. This is his and hers and theirs. (Reclamation.) 

And his hand finds her neck and she shudders because she can kill him twenty different ways from here, but in this moment, with his fingers a skin’s thickness from her life’s blood, she doesn’t worry that she’ll need to, and there’s a comfort to another hand recording her pulse, saying You’re alive in the way that her heart has always said it. 

And her hand wanders above his ribcage to find his heart’s echoed And so am I.

This is who they are.

A couple of master assassins.

They’ll probably kill each other someday. That’s okay. That’s alright.

That’s what the team is after all. 

Trust them to guard your back, fight your battles, guard the world against you, fight you if they have to. 

And he’s stared down her fists before, just as she’s stared down his arrow. 

And whomever they die fighting, this is their comfort:   
when the day ends,   
when the night comes, 

they’ll find each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr. Unbetaed.


End file.
